Literary notes about Whim (AI summary)
Writers deploy the word “whim” to capture actions and desires that are sudden, unpredictable, and often defy reason. In some works, it signifies an uncharacteristic impulse that disrupts longstanding habits, as when an unexpected seaside excursion surprises a forty-four-year marriage ([1]). In other narratives, characters risk everything on a mere caprice, emphasizing both audacity and vulnerability ([2], [3]). At times, “whim” reflects lighthearted eccentricity or a temporary fancy, lending humor or irony to the discourse ([4], [5], [6]). Even when used to underscore fleeting or impulsive decisions in the context of broader social or creative endeavors, the term enriches the narrative by highlighting the tension between rational deliberation and the allure of spontaneous action ([7], [8]).
- You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you have never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we have been married.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant - No physical impossibility stood in the way of his whim.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad - But this man, who would stake his existence on a whim with a bitter and jeering recklessness, stood in mortal fear of imprisonment.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad - He called our marriage and our life a farce, and said it was a caprice, a whim.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Play should not be fooling, By "fooling" we understand a series of disconnected temporary overflows of energy dependent upon whim and accident.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - So much for the commencement of this long whim-wham.
— from Twice-told tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne - “That will pass over,” he concluded; “it’s a whim:”
— from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert - Selection of afternoon tea food is entirely a matter of whim, and new food-fads sweep through communities.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post
